


)i am never without it(

by Sanetwin



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Conjoined Twins, Gen, Sarah's kinda problematic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 08:00:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10213112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanetwin/pseuds/Sanetwin
Summary: Maybe—there was no way to share the heart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i carry your heart with me(i carry it in  
> my heart)i am never without it(anywhere  
> i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done  
> by only me is your doing,my darling)  
>                                                 i fear  
> no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want  
> no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)  
> and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant  
> and whatever a sun will always sing is you
> 
> here is the deepest secret nobody knows  
> (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud  
> and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows  
> higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)  
> and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
> 
> i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
> 
> \-- e.e. cummings [i carry your heart (i carry it in]

Sarah’s first introduction to conjoined twins was from a discount hair salon off Church Street in downtown Toronto. Siobhan always took her and Felix for a trim before the new school year began, to “trim the mange,” she’d say. Leaning over her mother’s lap to catch a better look at the parlor’s copy of the _Weekly World News_ , she gagged loudly. According to the article, the twins were joined at the chest, or _thoracopagus_. Siobhan often said that the heart was the source and solution to all suffering—and there it was, bracketed delicately by their curled bodies.

That day, her stylist separated the sensitive hairs along the back of her neck with a pair of clippers, piling her matted baby hair on the floor with the touch of a surgeon. Her fingers probed Sarah’s neck as though she were searching for tumors.

(She’s very sensitive, you know), Siobhan explained, apprehensive of the impression this was beginning to leave on her character. (I’m not allowed near the comb. You know how kids are.) By now, the back of her child’s head resembled a reverse-mullet and most of her hair was organized in small piles beside their feet.

  
The stylist’s eyes cut to Siobhan in the mirror.

  
(Whiskey loosens that up), she said. The chewing gum punctuated her words with a plastic sound. (Just a splash.)

Siobhan just stared at the woman, realizing her flaw in wanting anyone's approval. Sarah quietly tucked the comment away to be used more boldly when she's fifteen.

   
Later that day, while absentmindedly touching the brutish ends of her hair, Sarah wondered how someone might separate two bodies with one heart. It was the first thing she thought of, in fact, when she saw the picture. Perhaps the heartstrings could be split like baby hairs, leaving a matted half for each pair. While the article seemed to marvel in their existence, she saw the bodies as a form of torture. Perhaps the twins’ bodies could be shucked from their heart like a ripe peach and they’d bury the remains in the ground, waving goodbye as they go separate ways.

It came to her just as she was about to fall asleep, while the night bruised purple and moved shadow figures around the room.

  
Maybe there was no way to share the heart. One twin would carry it for both of them, dizzied by an external rhythm.

  
***

  
Out of two identical cribs, one was vacant. The twins began to stir while she stared at the empty crib, the butterfly print. Their voices crooned to each other, a calming hush, an intimate conversation.

But one of the cribs were empty. She felt as though the room had shifted around her, swapping the second child out from before her eyes.

Helena was asleep in the other room, false dark, with hair as wet as a new moth’s wing. Sarah left before the room could shake with her waking.

Two rooms, two cribs, one of each was empty.

 

***

  
At first, Helena was not alone. Alison and Donnie were with her, holding her hand, but when blood began bubbling where the head should be, they were ushered out. The strangers with blue gloves spoke to her through wet paper masks. Mouthless words dizzied the room. Then they put a mask over her face and she breathed strange air. It had a familiar scent that resisted familiarity—mothballs, bleach?—for anyone who becomes aware of it, becomes less aware.

  
Then her eyes closed and she was alone.

  
Voices thrummed a pulse outside her head. She could no longer feel the twins' heartbeat from inside her.

  
() She called out. () but no one answered.

  
***

  
(Which of them has the larger share, you think?) Cosima asked Sarah as they boarded the boat. Cosima had agreed to spend the layover with Sarah before returning to camp, which neither of them wished to discuss. Cosima wanted her to stay and Sarah wanted them to come back together—neither willing to budge. They wound up sitting as they would over skype, with Sarah lying on her back, an arm slung behind her head, and with Cosima perched and cross-legged on the side.

  
Her question was aimed at the heart, of course. In the case of conjoined twins, does the heart have a favorite? Something Sarah had never noticed before was Cosima’s fascination with the real estate of bodies. Which souls were hosted in good investments, which were doomed to foreclosure?

  
(Cos, no one’s going to die), Sarah replied, hardly audible. She could feel her sister’s loneliness on the subject, but she wasn’t going to be the one to lift that for her.

  
Cosima shrugged.

  
(‘Til one of them turns parasitic, then—maybe.)

  
(That doesn’t happen), Sarah croaked. Most of their conversations went like this, sharing discovery and disbelief like talk of the weather.

  
(It’s rare), was all Cosima said.

  
She stroked Sarah’s knee. Her glasses were no longer the right prescription and she wore them lower on the bridge of her nose anyway. It seemed to her that the world had chosen to lose focus long before her eyesight worsened, and would become unrecognizable whether she chose to wear the right prescription or not. So why bother?

  
(What are you thinking?) Sarah asked, hoping that this was still a safe question to ask.

  
Cosima squeezed Sarah’s knee until she opened with a smile.

  
(Machiavelli’s theory), she replied, smiling as Sarah rolled her eyes. Then, remembering the baby she’d helped deliver at Brightborn, she gave Sarah’s knee another squeeze, (—if having the cure will be worth how I obtain it.)

(You already have the cure), Sarah said.

(I told you, Sarah. Nothing's guaranteed). 

Sarah shut her eyes. She didn’t open them again until she was alone.

  
***

On the X-ray, their ribcages looked like a pair of outstretched palms held together at the wrist.

Sarah waved her hands away, Alison removed the pictures from view.

  
(Try to see this from her perspective), Alison said. (Her children were given the solution to a problem Helena has suffered with for nearly thirty years.)

  
Sarah hated when Alison used phrases like that, _try this_ , or _have you considered...?_

(If you're going to be a bitch, we can end this right now), Sarah said, reaching for the ESC button on her computer.

(You know what I meant.) Alison already sounded weary of this conversation. (You know how she was in the internment camp.)

Sarah often tried not to remember the internment camp, but memories rose to the surface anyway. The way Helena would distance herself from reality, more interested in the internal machinery of a daydream than with her. Even Helena’s laughter had shifted from what it was before, becoming strained with an element of performance, as though she were emulating the voice of someone she could hardly remember. She tended to rub her nose against the hard nail of her thumb, as though the lack of nerve endings there would trick her body into believing the touch belonged to someone else.

  
Later, in the hotel, Helena would wake in a feverish sweat and crawl onto the ground, prodding the darkness for absences. When asked what she was doing, her only reply was that she needed to (find the edge) in order to (find what next one holds).

  
(That’s all fine and good. Until one of them dies.) Sarah said and shrugged as though to say—then what? (She won’t go to a bloody support group, Alison, I’ll tell you that right now. She’s not built for it.)

  
Alison lifted an eyebrow. It was becoming clear to her that this was one of those topics Sarah worsened her attitude on the more you tried to change her mind.

On the page, the names were scrawled in Helena’s chicken-scratch handwriting over each twin: Olya and Jarka, meaning holy and fearsome. Although unusual at first, she’d gotten used to their bodies quick enough and even began noting the differences between them. Dark fronds of hair sprouted on Jarka’s head while Olya’s remained nearly smooth. Their bodies were shaped like a butterfly’s wings, or an open book.

  
***

  
Motion sickness happens when there’s an argument in the mind over what’s real. The inner ear senses movement but the eyes are blind to it, so the mind moves while the body stays still. For most of the trip, Sarah had managed to stave off nausea through distraction. Her most successful attempt was chewing—she began with her fingernails and moved on to a piece of clay that was used to seal leaks in the hull.

  
Recognizing at last that it was on passage back home, Sarah’s phone began casting for a signal. Line after line soared into the sky but managed only to hook storm clouds. She cried into her phone, bedridden and broken from the collaborative efforts of hypothermia, dehydration, blood loss, and stress on her body. At last, a signal came through. She called Siobhan, cried silently as Kira waited for her to calm down, and then she called Helena.

  
(Are you safe?) Helena stopped asking if Sarah, or anyone, was all right because it seemed like their answers were continually spiraling out of her depth. She opted for questions grounded in the physical world— _are you safe, can you speak, have you eaten_?

  
(Yes. How are you feeling?) Sarah asked for the same reason Helena stopped asking. She was waiting for Helena to return with a challenge. _I feel like I’m repressing thirty years of trauma, Sarah, how are you doing?_

  
(Yes. Olya and Jarka are great. Very strong.)

  
In the middle of the ocean, the waves never crash. Instead, the water sloshes against the side of the boat, testing your balance. Sweat began to form in beads along Sarah’s forehead, proof of a struggle that couldn’t be seen.

  
(Sestra, are you there?)

  
Sarah chewed her mouth. Olya and Jarka. The sound of their names on Helena’s tongue was unlike anything else Sarah’s ever heard. Their sounds swam in her head. By now, the inside of her mouth probably resembled Helena’s body, but she wouldn’t stop chewing until the world stopped checking her balance.

  
(When you see them, Sarah, maybe you’ll give me a word to describe them.)

  
Later, while under the throes of an internal argument, Sarah will curl into herself as the boat seesaws over the head of a wave. She will vomit in her hair, in her palm, and continue until her stomach empties. She’ll believe that the boat is causing her nausea, but the feeling will persist for weeks afterward.

  
When, finally, she stands on solid ground, her body will feel as though it’s still moving.

  
***

  
Her second visit stuck. This was mostly because both cribs were empty this time. They were soft cedar cribs, probably hand-carved and sanded by Helena. Alison painted them, though. That was clear from the handiwork—and the color choices. The wood was painted eggshell white, but was blemished with a pattern of pink storks. She didn’t want to wonder why the cribs were empty, but for some reason, it felt safer than before.

  
Most conjoined twins don’t survive childbirth, or else die shortly after. Their bodies can be viewed from the womb afterward, a transfiguration of scar tissue and bone, like strips of wing from of an interrupted chrysalis.

  
For every disturbed transition in life, there is a translucent tomb, as though Nature knew we wouldn’t be able to look away.

  
(You came.)

  
Sarah turned to find Helena watching her. This is usually how she finds Helena: in the middle of present action. After all this time, she has yet to see Helena coming.

The child was in her arms: Four arms, four legs, two heads. They looked like a fresco painting that’d accidentally melded together.

  
Sarah shut her eyes.

  
The scars of separation were described to her as butterfly wings along the side of the ribcage, marking the end of their embryotic life together and their transformation into individuals. Alison had researched the condition extensively—the surgery being an implicit part of it.

  
(Alison said you went through with it), said Sarah. (Everything went fine.)

  
(You wouldn’t have come if you knew), Helena said.

Grimacing, Sarah turned to the window so that she could safely reopen her eyes. There, she saw group of migratory birds arch against the sky.

(So we lie to each other now), said Sarah. (Is that it?)

The words took her out of the moment. Does my voice really sound that old? She could hear Helena gravitate toward her—or maybe that was only the house settling, or the twins’ groan—and focused her attention on the blank white sky.

  
(Look at me.)

  
Sight was a sort of trust fall when it came to Helena. Look, Sarah—knife-wound, a thumb-hooked eye, a shadow-wolf licking, loving. She could never resist the dare.

Helena wore a sleeveless t-shirt and sweatpants. Apparently unimpressed with winter, she kept a red sweater tied around her waist. She began to approach.

  
(Just—stay there, Helena).

  
The tapestry of pain along her back had expanded to the front of her body, where her scars appeared like crescent nails and lipstick smiles. Some were accidental, others deliberate—they were all caused by Sarah, some way or another. The freshest was the C-section scar below her navel. That, too, was caused by Sarah, for not being there, for not seeing the signs of an unusual pregnancy, for sending her back there—to the place, no one remembers; the place that’ll go on being unremembered unless properly framed by fire.

Then Helena walked into Sarah’s arms.

  
***

 

Sarah watched from the door frame as Helena bathed the twins. She sat at the edge of the tub and splashed at the inch of water, making Olya laugh while Jarka stared with wide awestruck eyes.

(Thanks, mother), Helena said in a wooden, high-pitched voice. Sarah widened her eyes when she realized that Helena was speaking for Olya. While she spoke, she held Olya’s hand and waved it around like a conductor and sometimes patting Olya’s knee with it. Meanwhile her other hand washed away the remaining suds from her head. (I’m peeing as we speak!) Helena said, sounding oddly victorious.

(Is that the best baby voice you can do?) Sarah asked, crossing her arms. (And don’t let them call you mother, yet. That’s reserved for when they’re shitty teens.)

Helena turned to look at Sarah with an open smile, trying to think of a sarcastic remark, and her eyes drifted to the side as she drew a blank. At least Olya was entertained. In fact, she couldn’t stop laughing and kept bouncing in the water as she shrieked, reaching repeatedly for Helena’s hand.

Turning back to her twins, she lowered her head to Jarka and spoke in a low, gravelly voice.  

(I love you most, Mommy) she said. Jarka’s only reply was to spew a stream of spit bubbles from her mouth.  

(Weirdo), Sarah said. She’d done the same for Kira, of course. She had entire conversations with the girl months before Kira could talk. Her favorite was when she’d feed Kira on the high chair, circling cheerios in the air and pretending that Kira was narrating the whole thing.

Jarka stared at Sarah then with a spit smile streaming from her open mouth. She waved at Sarah. Olya was still staring at Helena. Her pudgy hand grasped a tendril of hair and pulled it to her mouth. _Momma’s girl_ , Sarah thought and her eyes drifted back to Jarka, who’d never looked away.

***

In Helena’s experience, people were capable of embracing almost anything so long as you’re there when their arms got tired. Gaining Sarah’s acceptance was a matter of patience and dexterity.

Sarah stood stone still in the center of the room, her arms spread out, neither fully rejecting or accepting Helena nor the twins.

(How do you expect them to be normal?), Sarah asked. (How will they fit in?)

Helena bounced her knees and the twins began to stir awake, burbling with smiles.  

(God made them as they're meant to be), she said. Simple as that. Helena had a tenuous relationship with God, or so Alison believed. Apparently today they were on good terms.

It took ten minutes, but eventually Sarah’s arms enveloped around the twins and Helena both.

(I still think you should separate them) Sarah said at last. (I’m just tired.) A tear streaked down Sarah’s cheek, but neither of them acknowledged it. The twins’ breath expanded into the two halves of their mother and then collapsed with an internal rhythm.

 

***

Helena’s first introduction to conjoined twins was from a picture she’d found in Maggie’s locker while waiting for new instructions. She’d found the picture after rifling through the pile of Cold River storage files. She still had two containers to go through and was supposed to have finished all of them yesterday. It was torture looking at them. The children’s bodies were twisted and warped in ways she never would have imagined. The picture was different, though. That’s why she kept it. The twins were still alive in the picture, but there was no telling what happened to them afterward.

Their bodies were mangled together so that only two heads and two legs emerged, but their faces were peaceful. She could kiss the picture for the peace in their faces.

In two days, Maggie would come to drop more information and replenish the food supplies so she’d be finished by then. Returning to the lemon from last night, she began sucking the tendrils of fruit from a lemon rind. She’d eaten the whole lemon with some water and saltine crackers last night when she was supposed to have only eaten half. It was a day full of mistakes, but she’d get back on the right track just as soon as she finished eating.

The doll heads from the cage beside her blinked at her.

(I would feed you, too), Helena said and began to gnaw on the rind, (But you don’t have any stomachs.)

(We may not have stomachs, but we’re still hungry), said the baby doll heads. (Do you want to look at the picture again?)

(I can’t), Helena said and opened the lid of the first box. Her heart dug burrows in her chest, feeling already a sick-weary love for these children.

(You have two days left, Helena), the doll heads said. (Look at the picture again.)

(Okay.) Shutting the lid, Helena crawled onto her bed and reached beneath her pillow. There, she retrieved the picture. She loved the completeness of it all—there was no beginning or end for either twin, they simply existed for the sake of it.

Later, Tomas will find the photo folded in half and crumpled deep in the pocket of her jeans. Helena will pound her open palms against her face, battering every inch of herself, but he’ll still burn it. In fact, he will burn all the photos, even those Maggie had set aside for herself.  

(There is only one mission), Tomas will say.    

The faces of those children will remain. She’d loved all of them, even when it hurt too much to look at them. Filaments of their image will spark in her mind at random intervals, years later. _Had they felt it_? She will wonder. For some, those images had been the only evidence of the child’s short, pained existence. How many had roused from their eternal rest to a tongue of fire, fearing, burning? How many were alone?

The only comfort she found was in remembering those twins. If she had stirred them from rest with her coveting, then at least their suffering was dispersed between them—a shared sort of suffering.

Their buried heart, like a seed, will split green and dig for light in spring.

**Author's Note:**

> [How e.e. Cummings Writes a Poem ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffo3pxNO7c)by The NerdWriter
> 
> [ Conjoined Twins ](http://www.seattlechildrens.org/medical-conditions/chromosomal-genetic-conditions/conjoined-twins/)(a medical definition)
> 
> [The Sex Life of Conjoined Twins](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/the-sex-lives-of-conjoined-twins/264095/) (lot's a good info on how twins live, expectations, and prejudices placed on them by society)


End file.
